- Jamie Jones, a 34-year-old former financial analyst, shared his salary with female coworkers often.
- Jones believed these discussions helped the women who he worked with to negotiate higher pay.
This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Jamie Jones, a 34-year-old founder and former financial analyst. His most recent job and income have been verified by Business Insider. The following has been edited for length and clarity.
I’ve always been comfortable talking about how much I make. I did it at my early jobs in the UK, where I’m originally from, and I did it in the six years I spent working at a large US-based food services provider between 2018 and 2023.
Over those 12 years, I worked exclusively in finance — and for whatever reason, the majority of my colleagues and bosses were women. Discussions of pay came up rather frequently and I felt it was my responsibility to be an ally to my female colleagues when it came to salaries.
Time after time, talking about pay helped those women make more money. If it wasn’t right away, in an upcoming negotiation, it was during the next review cycle or when a new position opened up.
Since getting laid off in 2023, I founded my own company, helping LGBTQ+ companies secure funding. But I want to share my experiences to encourage other men in the workforce to share what they make with their female colleagues.
Short of companies choosing to be more transparent on their own, talking with your coworkers is the only way I know for people to make what they’re worth. Here’s what my experiences over the past 12 years have been like.
During my early career in the UK, pay transparency was the norm
After graduating from the University of Birmingham in 2012, I spent the first years of my career in the UK. I worked for two companies: a medium-sized firm with around 200 employees, and a much smaller firm with only 10 employees. Even at the larger firm, pay wasn’t a taboo subject.
Everybody knew what people at similar levels made, which we discovered was exactly the same. Even my boss told me what she made. This was the work environment in which I spent my early and mid-twenties, absorbing cultural norms that being open about salary was healthy and normal.
Looking back, I wonder if the pay equity was so strong at that company because of how many women were in positions of power. Research has shown that when female leaders can influence compensation within their company, pay equity improves. My experience tracked with that finding.
Moving to the US, it became clear you had to fight for your worth
When I took my next job in the US, I quickly learned I had to fight for myself and for others. This company was literally a hundred times larger than the 200-person company I was leaving behind in the UK. I didn’t feel I could rely on the kindness of my bosses to create fair working conditions. It all felt more impersonal and cutthroat.
I started that job as a senior financial analyst making $85,000 a year. I renegotiated my salary within six months to $92,000 due to a lot of movement within the team. A year later, I negotiated hard to push my salary to $100,000. I presented comparisons to similar roles and responsibilities, and I laid out clear examples of how my success merited the increase.
In July 2020, I moved positions and took on a manager role at $115,000. On separate occasions during that role, three of my female colleagues began pursuing senior analyst roles, which was my prior role. Each time, the women were successful at securing the job, but when it came time to negotiate the salary, they were lowballed.
I had to tell them that when I was in that role, I was making $100,000 — and that was two years ago. I told them, “That’s your benchmark. You want at least $100K.” One of them was uncomfortable pushing so hard, but the others managed to secure the higher salary. Knowing how skilled another woman was, and how much more experience she had than I did, she was surely more qualified. The only difference I could see between me and them was that I was a man, and they were women.
During my time at this company, every boss I had was a man. Compared to my experiences in the female-led company in the UK, I can’t help but think the lowball offers to my female colleagues were in some way related to this one key difference.
Men, help your female colleagues earn what they’re worth
I don’t see any downsides to pay transparency. There are only three scenarios, and they all lead to positive outcomes. Either you find out you’re making less than other people, in which case you can do your research to learn what you deserve. Or you learn you’re making more than others, which empowers them to fight for more. Or you learn you’re all making the same amount.
In the US, women typically see the first scenario play out, and men see the second. Knowing men like me tend to hold this privilege, I believe we have a moral responsibility to help pull everyone up to our level. We can’t wait for conversations to happen. We must broach the topic.
While it might be nice to imagine employers making pay equity or transparency a priority, in my experience, employers will find reasons for explaining away the pay gaps. They’ll say it’s justified. And even with some employers being legally required in certain states to advertise salary ranges, many ranges are too wide to be useful in negotiations. (In these cases, I’d always just ask for the highest number in the range.)
Ultimately, it’s up to employees to demand better. And that starts with people, ideally men, having honest conversations about what they make and what’s actually fair.
If you have a six-figure salary or more and would like to share your salary journey, email Manseen Logan at mlogan@businessinsider.com.